


solid ground

by hymnotics



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, Sky Factory AU, Temporary Character Death, ft. my inability to capitalize anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 18:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20605424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hymnotics/pseuds/hymnotics
Summary: it starts like this: first, the nothingness. then, like a spark, like the big bang, a white-hot singularity of the universe imploding on itself—and the foundation of this whole world they’ve built. one single tree and a measly patch of dirt.





	solid ground

**Author's Note:**

> for nana, who said (and i quote), "be the change"
> 
> this is purely self-indulgent sky factory au fic, so i'm taking a lot of creative liberties with, well, everything.

some days, jeremy can’t shake his fear of the void. it keeps him away from the fence, maybe a little too far from it. it electrifies him, now, to see michael sitting in the grass, dangling his feet off the edge as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. this platform doesn’t _have_ a fence, because michael doesn’t like to feel constrained, so jeremy’s struck with another bout of anxiety just opening the gate.

but when michael gets like this, so far away from the rest of them, he can only hear a select few voices. jeremy’s one of those, and ryan’s busy. some computer meltdown or another.

so jeremy pads across the grass. once he’s decidedly close enough to the edge, he drops to the ground and shuffles a little bit closer on his knees.

“michael,” he says carefully. surely michael’s heard his approach, but michael’s also a flighty thing. it would kill jeremy to startle him now. “come away from the edge, please.”

michael laughs. “you think i’m gonna throw myself off?”

jeremy suspects that _yes_ would be the wrong answer in this case, even if it’s true. michael, who carved out this little field by hand, a space for himself and no one else, separate from the rest of the chaos. detached would be the wrong word to use, because michael is anything but detached, but he likes to wander, and he can’t get that where all of ryan’s computers are churning away. and michael’s fallen (or jumped) off more than once, and although it’s been a while since the last trip, jeremy’s fairly certain the void _changes_ you, when it gets its teeth in you.

it’s why jeremy’s so careful about where his feet land.

“look at this,” michael says, twisting around to look at jeremy, body hanging precariously off-balance over the void. jeremy barely resists the urge to pull him in. slowly, gently, michael unfolds his hand.

and a flower stares up at them.

not literally, because this particular flower doesn’t have a face, but _holy shit_. it’s floating just above michael’s palm, glowing orange and throwing off sparks. it’s like nothing else on this little floating island of theirs; ryan’s got his computers, and jack his fusion… whatever, crackling with unstable electricity, and those are both otherworldly experiments, but this little flower? it belongs nowhere but in michael’s palm. in michael’s domain, next to his mana spreader and his apothecary and his _magic_.

“i forgot,” michael says. quiet. he curls his fingers around the flower again and tucks it into the side pocket of his backpack. “i forgot what it was like to _do_ something.”

and _that’s_ the kind of comment that gets jeremy worried, because it’s the kind of coment that leads to michael jumping off just for the hell of it, just to feel the sensation of flying or falling, just to remember the ache of being torn to pieces by the void below.

and _fuck_, jeremy is so the wrong person for this conversation. he doesn’t _know_ michael the way that ryan does, doesn’t know the keywords that will close this gap between them.

michael’s eyes glitter, his curls wild, and fear strikes through jeremy again because he knows this look, has seen it before, months ago, the last time michael jumped.

“please, michael,” he whispers. “just come here. we can plant your new flower, and i’ll—i’ll go back to ryan’s computers and get—i’ll get—what the hell does it eat?”

“lava.”

“i’ll get lava from ryan,” jeremy promises. “we can feed your flower. you know if you jump now you’re just wasting all that hard work for nothing.”

“do you understand what it’s like to be trapped here?”

“we’re all trapped here,” jeremy says, confused.

“this is your home,” michael says, managing to sound exasperated, as if jeremy is an idiot that michael has to talk down to, which is true. “i don’t have—i’m not attached, i’m not _grounded_ like you guys are.”

“none of us are grounded, technically.”

“asshole,” michael mutters. “i just meant—i think there’s something wrong with me.”

jeremy’s bad at feelings. his strengths lie in blood magic, mostly, and ryan’s circuitboards when necessary as long as ryan makes it as simple as possible—but emotions? so far out of his reach. “there’s nothing wrong with you.”

michael just stares at him.

“really,” jeremy insists. “i think it’s just—you know, the rest of us, we all—we all _have_ our magic, just, ready for us. here already. mostly, anyway, since ryan and gavin trade off every twelve hours or something—”

“you can just say by daylight,” michael interrupts, but his lips are starting to quirk up into a smile, and his eyes are less crazed-glittering and more amused-glittering.

“shut up. what i’m trying to say is that you draw your power from—from exploring, right? from wandering. of _course_ you’re gonna feel dissatisfied here, and take stupid risks like hurling yourself into the void just to see what it steals from you this time. i just wish you could find outlets that, like, didn’t involve the void.”

michael cracks a real smile. “i’m dating the void,” he says, and at jeremy’s obvious displeasure he adds, “we make love every time i jump into her _loving_ embrace—”

“who’s the asshole, again?” jeremy asks.

“get off my lawn,” michael says, but he’s already pulling himself back from the ledge. “and, hey, do me a favor? kill one of geoff’s chickens on your way out.”

“i heard that!” geoff yells. jeremy sighs and draws his sword.

it starts like this: first, the nothingness. then, like a spark, like the big bang, a white-hot singularity of the universe imploding on itself—

and the foundation of this whole world they’ve built. one single tree and a measly patch of dirt.

their bodies came later. when they materialized, one by one, they tried to disperse as best they could, but there hadn’t been anywhere to go, in the beginning. eventually they scattered enough, clinging to tree branches that extended uncomfortably far over the void, and jack was able to climb down the tree and touch down on the dirt.

and, _god_, jeremy will never forget the way jack gasped and shuddered at the sensation. later they would learn about their magic, jack’s ability to draw power from the earth (what little they had, anyway). but in that moment they were all speechless.

for a while, there wasn’t much point in anything. they managed to assemble a makeshift wooden platform, spreading out more patches of dirt and planting more trees. ryan settled comfortably into his role as de facto leader, despite his frequent arguments with gavin.

(later, they would learn that this stemmed primarily from their opposing sources of power, but that wasn’t for a while yet.)

jeremy remembers those early days a little too clearly. he doesn’t remember a _before_, only that singularity, that _coming-into-being_. but he remembers gavin’s automatic contempt for ryan’s orders, ryan’s own restlessness, michael’s… apathy, for lack of a better word. while the others toiled away trying to make something livable out of _nothing_, michael perched on the edge of their little island, or sat cross-legged on their lone bed—because, back then, they took it in shifts to sleep, not trusting any of their early creations to keep working unattended—and he watched.

jeremy’s not even sure that michael himself remembers those days. it had been strange, to say the least, but no one ever complained. even when michael could more reliably be found staring at the stars surrounding them than be found helping to establish a consistent and plentiful food source, which is what jack labored endlessly over. jeremy suspects that, even in those early moments, they’d all known michael was something _other_ from them.

and then the first fall struck.

whatever really happened had been too quick for jeremy to truly process. one moment there was peace, and in the next, gavin’s magic went haywire and sent their somewhat-stable wooden base to splinters, and jack and jeremy were the only ones who _didn’t_ go tumbling into the void.

what jeremy _does_ remember is the terror that took root in him, clinging to the remains of a shoddily-built fence with one arm and sheer willpower. he remembers jack, _jumping_ across a gap that shouldn’t have been possible for him to close, just to reach him. to haul jeremy to relative safety.

jeremy couldn’t move for the fear in him, so he curled up on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, while jack worked to salvage what remained of the life they’d built. jeremy blinked, and jack had finished rebuilding a new, sturdier wooden platform to replace the old one.

“did you have a nice nap?” jack had asked. jeremy had nodded. jack went back to his busy work: planting trees, sifting through dirt for valuables—things jeremy couldn’t possibly have tolerated in that state of mind, but he understands now that it had helped jack.

and then, maybe hours later, they came back.

gavin reappeared _in_ one of jack’s trees, which had been a disorienting and confusing experience for everyone involved. geoff and ryan had hit the ground hard, but ryan had picked himself up again and gotten back to work, resolutely ignoring the whole experience. geoff had dragged himself to the bed and laid there for three days.

and michael. _michael_. none of the four of them spoke about the fall, what should’ve arguably been their demise, but jeremy knows it changed things about them. michael came back with a fervor in his eyes, his former listlessness replaced by an apparent sense of purpose, a determination jeremy had never seen in him before.

jeremy’s fear had started then, seeing firsthand how the fall had changed his friends. he’d been terrified of it stealing something vital from him, something that would make him _not_ him anymore.

that specific fear had abated, as time had passed and several more accidental falls without consequence occurred. but that doesn’t make the whole ordeal any more pleasant.

an arrow skims past jeremy’s ear, dragging him violently from his thoughts. he spins slowly, still undecided as to whether he should be angry or horrified, to find michael perched on top of jeremy’s furnace. suddenly neither of his planned reactions seem appropriate.

“why did you just try to kill me?” he asks incredulously. michael manages to wrap amusement and disdain into one neat expression.

“please. if i wanted to kill you, you’d be dead and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

this is a fair point. still. “there are easier ways to get my attention.”

“apparently there aren’t,” michael says. “i said your name like six times.”

jeremy hadn’t heard that. “sorry. how’d you get up there?”

michael shrugs. “you seen this shit?”

he holds out his hand and something unravels from it, bright and blue and—

“is that _silk_?”

“it’s a cloth, anyway,” michael says. “i don’t really know the difference. i just thought this was kinda cool looking.”

it would be incredibly in character for michael to _not know_ what he’s making.

“i’ve decided,” michael adds, “to appease the _wanderer_ part of me by just collecting resources and making things without thinking about them. i think it’s working.”

“you made silk,” jeremy says, still not entirely certain he believes it.

“if you say so.” michael hops off the furnace, a several foot drop that might be cause for concern for most people, and tugs his arrow out of the floor. jeremy’s torn from his thoughts (again) by ryan’s yelling on the other side of the furnace.

“gavin,” he calls loudly and angrily. “get your _fucking_ solar panels off my _computer_!”

“you need power,” gavin wails, just as loudly.

“i _have_ power!”

michael meets jeremy’s eyes and flashes a brilliant smile.

“i mean, you know, just, uh—”

“get to the _point_, ryan,” gavin says. jeremy helps strap his armor on.

“it’s dark in there,” ryan finally says. “like, really dark.”

“you would know,” michael mutters.

“i have torches,” gavin says.

“uh huh,” ryan replies. there’s a beat of silence that says a lot more than ryan’s words ever could, and then ryan says, “okay! i guess you’re all set then, have fun, bye!”

“bye?” gavin steps through the portal and disappears.

“torches won’t work, will they?” michael says. it’s not quite a question.

“uh, nope,” ryan says.

“what if he _dies_?” jeremy says, aghast. ryan shrugs.

“you’re the only one here with a completely irrational fear of death,” michael says.

“i’m pretty sure fearing death isn’t irrational at all.”

“he’ll come _back_.” michael tilts his head thoughtfully. he’s toying with his bowstring, an idle fidgeting motion that makes jeremy edgy. “maybe i should—”

“don’t say it,” jeremy interrupts, but michael’s faster. he already has an arrow nocked and drawn before jeremy finishes speaking. “michael, let’s think about this now, okay—”

“i am just gonna, uh, go,” ryan says. “um. computer stuff.”

no one says anything, and ryan backs away. michael is still staring down the line of his arrow at jeremy, hands steady.

“michael,” jeremy says again. “this is—that would be _murder_, murder is _wrong_—”

michael’s face breaks into a grin. “let’s go on an _adventure_.”

which is how jeremy finds himself in hell. on a _suicide_ mission. to appease michael’s restless soul. ryan claims to need things. soul sand, wither heads. but ryan’s also nothing short of a god; if he truly needed something, he could probably make it.

jeremy suspects he’s fabricated needs to give them something to do.

when michael slips several feet down the rocky cliffside before managing to regain his footing, ryan’s voice crackles to life in their ears. “come back. i can find another way to get things. it’s fine, it’s not worth dying all the way out there.”

and jeremy’s suspicions are confirmed.

but michael’s a stubborn son of a bitch, so he squares his shoulders, says, “we’re doing this,” and marches further into the gloom.

jeremy sighs and follows. michael leads the way most of the time, because he’s surer-footed than jeremy and faster with his sword besides. michael stops short, eventually, just before the fortress looming overhead.

“what do you think it means,” he says, “that hell’s got all this land, and all these buildings and monsters, and we only have what we make?”

“must mean we like it that way,” jeremy says after a pause. michael tilts his head quizzically, but whatever question he’s formulating goes unsaid. a beat passes, and then jeremy starts off to storm the castle. or whatever.


End file.
